Sometimes
by ShadowsTakeAll
Summary: "Well," he said, still holding the gun like it was completely natural, "good guys just aren't what they used to be."


**So occasionally I forget to sleep and then things like this happen. This is set directly after 4x18 and is based on the Ezria sneak peek from 4x19 (which is where the beginning/ending quotes come from), so spoilers up until then. This is just a one-shot, deliberately open-ended, so don't go complaining that there's no closure. You've been warned. So here we go: enjoy, review, and maybe I'll see you in some of my other stories.**

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_"Well I had this hero, but heroes aren't what they used to be anymore,  
>so I got fascinated with the villain."<br>"Does your villain lose in the end?"  
>"Not sure…"<em>

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"I just can't believe it," Emily said for the seventh time, sinking down onto the bed and shaking her head slightly, as if her disbelief would be enough to change the truth.

The cold, hard truth that had turned their worlds upside down. Again.

"It's a lot to take in," Spencer agreed. Even though she'd had longer than the others to process this news, she was still having trouble letting it sink in. Because when she let herself believe that Ezra really was A, that he had been trying to hurt them all along, she had also begun to think about things she should never have even considered, should never have let cross her mind.

"So Ezra's A," Hanna said, her voice flat. "And Shana was telling the truth about Ali."

"And now Ali has no way to get this -" Spencer said, holding up the bundle of money that Emily had retrieved from Ali's room "- which means that she can't keep running."

"Which means Ezra's going to find her," Emily finished, and the sentence made the three of them fall silent.

How could it be that Ezra, someone they had trusted, had never even _suspected_, could have been behind all of the torture they'd been through since Ali disappeared? How could he have done this to them… and to Aria?

"I've been thinking." Spencer got to her feet again and started pacing, her hands flying all over the place – rubbing her nose, running through her hair – anything to dispel all the anxious energy that was rushing through her. "Have you guys noticed that Aria's been acting kind of weird lately?"

Hanna narrowed her eyes slightly. It seemed strange that Spencer, who currently looked like her blood had literally turned to coffee and was now delivering concentrated doses of caffeine straight into her brain, would be asking if Aria was acting weird.

"I guess," Emily said slowly. "When you mentioned Ezra to her at the Brew…"

"She completely shut me out," Spencer said, finishing Emily's sentence. The girls knew Aria and Jake were over, and Spencer had just assumed that meant her friend would go back to Ezra. But when she'd brought it up, Aria had very firmly told her she wasn't with Ezra at the moment. There was a chance that Aria was lying – she'd done it in the past, after all – and if she was, then she was probably in danger. "It seemed too quick, don't you think? Like she was hiding something from us."

"Like the fact that her ex-boyfriend is a homicidal maniac?" Hanna supplied grimly.

"No." Spencer paused her pacing long enough to shake her head, and then continued. "I don't think Aria knows anything. She would have said something."

"But you think she might be back together with him?" Emily asked, looking like the thought actually made her sick. If what Spencer said was true, if Ezra was Board Shorts and A, if he was really out to get them, then their best friend could unknowingly be walking into the arms of a killer.

"It's a possibility," Spencer said. "We know she's kept it a secret from us before, and if she thought we weren't going to be supportive, or it wasn't the right time, or a hundred other excuses, she wouldn't tell us."

Hanna let out a moan of frustration. "But if we tell her before we have any proof, she's not going to believe us. She might just go running back to him."

Spencer paled. If they were the reason Aria went back to Ezra, she would never be able to forgive herself. And they might never get Aria back. "So we don't tell her until we have proof," Spencer said, still pacing, now chewing on her thumbnail in her agitation.

"God, Spence, can you chill?" Hanna burst out, causing the other girl to come to a complete stop and look at her in shock. "Sorry," Hanna mumbled, "it's just that your pacing is making me even more stressed than I already was."

Biting back a retort, Spencer forced her hands to keep still, forced herself to sit back down on the bed and bring herself back into this moment, away from the myriad possibilities for the future – none of them pleasant.

Hanna nodded slightly, acknowledging the effort she was going to, and then said, "So we need to get proof that Ezra's A. How do we do that?"

"We can't go back to his apartment," Spencer said quickly, her spine tingling as she remembered the hidden camera. "We can't risk tipping him off or making him suspicious."

"Where else would he keep anything of importance?" Emily mused. She was still coming to terms with it all, with the idea that their English teacher, their friend's ex-boyfriend, was untrustworthy, but it was easier if she forced herself to be detached. It was easier to think of him as A, the enemy they'd been trying to unmask for years, when she didn't say his name, or picture his face. "I mean, if I were him, I probably wouldn't keep everything at my house either."

"I'd want somewhere private," Spencer chipped in, following Emily's train of thought. "Like a lair – like the one he had in Ravenswood. But if he knows we were there, he might already have cleaned it out. So where else would he…?"

"His office." Hanna breathed the words, sitting up straighter with the realization. "Hiding it in plain sight. It makes sense – hiding all his files in with his school stuff. Nobody would bother to look through folders of school reports and lesson plans. It would be the perfect place to hide it all."

Spencer blinked. "You actually have a point."

With a pointed smile, Hanna said, "You're not the only one who can be smart, you know."

Choosing to ignore this, Spencer addressed both of them again. "So we go and search his office."

Emily licked her lips, suddenly nervous about the prospect of sneaking into Ezra's office – the lair of the beast. "When?"

Spencer glanced at the clock. Then she squared her shoulders, knowing what they had to do. "Now."

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It had been a long time, Aria realized, since she'd had a good night's sleep. She was always worried about one thing or another – Mike's new relationship with Mona, school assignments piling up, the constant threat of being strangled in her sleep by some unknown malevolent entity. But here, in this cabin, with just her and Ezra, she felt safe.

At least, that's what she kept telling herself. She couldn't pinpoint why, but she was uneasy. A few times she would look around the dark cabin and feel a flicker of fear, even when Ezra was right beside her. She was safe from A here – in theory at least. Ezra would never hurt her, and her friends didn't even know she was here…

For some reason, that thought made her feel particularly ill at ease. She suddenly wished that she had told her friends she would be here, just in case… well, there were too many ways to end that sentence. Just in case they needed her. Just in case she and Ezra had a fight and she wanted to come home. Just in case A found her and she needed to get out of there.

Unfortunately, all of those options were likely.

It was past midnight, and she was still not asleep. She felt better after talking to Ezra, although she couldn't quite quell the uncomfortable feeling she'd had since she'd woken up without him in the bed. His story made sense, and she couldn't think of any reason he'd lie to her; so she told herself that she had just been worried by the thought that something might have happened to him, that A had lured him off somehow. That's all it was.

Now he was beside her, and she was safely ensconced in his arms. She could hear his heartbeat, feel his pulse against her skin, and it gave her comfort. But the night still seemed too quiet, too dark, like something was lurking just in the shadows.

It was almost one by the time she finally drifted off, but she jolted awake at ten past and stared wildly around, not sure what had startled her. Then her eyes slid downwards and she realized what it was. The bed beside her was empty.

She forced herself to take a few deep breaths, to collect her thoughts before jumping to any conclusions. She waited a few minutes, but Ezra didn't come back. There were no sounds from anywhere in the cabin, nothing that would explain where he was or what he was doing. She waited another minute, counting out each second, and then slowly put her feet on the floor, pushing the blankets off her.

Her heartbeat increased with every step she took, with every shadow she saw, with every second that passed by when she didn't find Ezra. She searched every inch of the house, even stuck her head out the door and looked into the woods, but he was nowhere to be found. Feeling even more agitated, she fished her phone out of her purse and tried calling him, but it went straight to voicemail.

She was holding the phone so tightly that her hand was actually hurting, and the second she realized that, she let go. The phone clattered to the ground, the sound – though expected – making her jump. Cursing her frayed nerves she dropped into a crouch and picked it up, but that's when she noticed the rug.

It was something seemingly innocuous, just an upturned corner, but under the circumstances she couldn't stop the suspicion that crept into her heart. Not sure what she was expecting, she grabbed the corner and lifted it up, and almost stumbled back in shock when she saw the trapdoor.

It wasn't unusual, she reasoned, for old cabins like this to have trapdoors that led into the basement. It would be a good place for storage, or maybe it could be turned into a games room. There was nothing unsettling about it – except the fact that Ezra hadn't told her about it. For a split second she wondered if he was hiding something, but she pushed the thought away. That road was too terrifying.

But her courage hadn't failed yet, so with mounting unease she grabbed the handle of the trapdoor and swung it open, revealing a dimly lit staircase. She couldn't tell how far down it went, only that it led into darkness. Wrapping herself in all the courage her tiny body possessed, she started down the stairs. One step. Two. Three, four, five. Finally she was at the bottom, her bare feet shivering as she gazed around.

It was dark down here, too dark to see, so she felt along the wall, looking for a light switch. She found it, and a second later the room was lit up, every detail as clear as day – as soon as her eyes adjusted.

This was definitely not a games room, nor did it appear to be a storage room. In fact it seemed more like a hideout than a basement, and if her heart hadn't already been beating quicker than a hummingbird's wings it would have sped up at the sight of all the technology in front of her: the computer monitors, the cell phones, the digital cameras.

Darting a cautious glance back at the stairs, making sure the trapdoor was still open, she made her way over to the computer desk and sat down, her entire body trembling. She clicked the mouse once and all of the monitors came alive, revealing the last screens that had been active. Most of them were pictures of the girls – Emily, leaving the Brew; Spencer, going into her house; Hanna, heading out of the mall. And Aria herself.

But the last screen was a picture of what looked like a student file. She clicked a couple of times to zoom in, and with a sinking feeling realized that it was the nurse's file on Spencer. She scanned it, wondering what the hell Ezra would want with it, and then she noticed a small note at the bottom. Written on top of the photo, by someone on this computer.

_Becoming a threat – possibly aware. To be dealt with ASAP._

The words swam around in Aria's mind, but whenever she tried to grab them they fled from her grasp. She knew what it would mean if what she was seeing was real. If Ezra had been keeping tabs on them, if he'd been hiding in this creepy basement in a middle-of-nowhere cabin. She knew what it meant, and she knew what it would do to her if it was true.

Ezra was A.

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Although it had taken some convincing, Emily and Hanna had finally agreed to come along to the school. Spencer led the way inside, having already picked the locks. She held her flashlight tightly, her knuckles turning white, and she'd swing the beam around at every single sound – but most often it turned out to be the clicking of Hanna's heels or the rustling of Emily's jeans.

By the time they reached the girls reached Ezra's office they were all on high alert, all frazzled nerves and quickly beating hearts. They slipped inside, quietly closing the door behind them, and only then did they turn on the light.

For a minute afterwards they all just stared at the sight in front of them. For some reason, Spencer had been expecting – hoping – there would be some obvious sign, something staring them right in the face. Something that proved she was right about this. But if she was right, it would destroy Aria, and she wasn't sure she could live with that.

There was nothing out of the ordinary. It looked exactly like a teacher's office should look like, which somehow made it more eerie. In the darkness of the night – well, technically, early morning – every move the girls made seemed too loud, every whispered word like a gunshot. They split up, each taking a different stack of papers to search through.

Spencer leaned against the filing cabinet, flicking through her own pile. From what she could tell, it really was just lesson plans and school reports. There were no secret schemes, no references to casually stalking a bunch of teenagers in his spare time. From the outside it seemed like Ezra was the model teacher, and for a second Spencer doubted her judgment. Could she have misread the story in Ali's diary? Was there any chance that meeting Ezra at the bar had just been a coincidence?

"Here," Hanna said suddenly, and the other two hurried over to her. She held out a piece of paper, handwritten. "It's a letter."

The handwriting was achingly familiar, so close to their hearts that none of them needed to say whose it was. Alison's. Hanna held the letter for the others to read, but it was hard because her hands were shaking so badly. By the time they got to the end, both Emily and Spencer were perturbed.

"It's a Dear John," Emily said, reaching out a tentative hand to touch the letter, as if that would bring her closer to finding – and saving – Alison. "Ali broke up with him."

"And it must have meant something to him," Spencer said quietly, "for him to have kept it."

This was the proof they'd been looking for, but it didn't make any of them feel better in the slightest. Ezra was A. He was Board Shorts, Alison's older boyfriend. She'd broken up with him, and he'd… what? Come to Rosewood to hunt her down, knowing she was still alive? Come back here thinking she was dead, and wanting to make sure it was true? Taken the job at Rosewood High so he could watch – and torment – her friends?

Had he even loved Aria, ever? Had their entire relationship been a lie?

"Oh my god." Emily's voice was hardly more than a murmur, but it was enough to get the others' attention. They followed her gaze, which was resting on the table. And on the table was a very familiar notebook.

Spencer snatched it up, flicking through it to check none of it had been altered or removed. It was Ali's notebook, the one that had been stolen before they had a chance to read all the stories.

"Do we… do we take this with us?" Hanna asked, watching Spencer feverishly flick through it.

"What?" Spencer asked, barely glancing up.

Emily and Hanna shared a look, silently communicating their concern for their friend. She was jumpier than usual, more on edge than she was even when she'd had a few too many cups of coffee, and they were worried she was heading for another stint at Radley.

"The notebook," Hanna clarified carefully. "Do we take it with us?"

"Yeah." Spencer looked from Hanna to Emily and back again, confused. "Why wouldn't we?"

"If we take it, Ezra might notice it's missing," Hanna said reasonably.

Spencer blinked rapidly, obviously having trouble dealing with the fact that she hadn't considered this option first. "Oh," she said finally. "That's a good point."

"Here," Emily said, pulling out her phone. "Let's take pictures of each page, and then we can put it back where we found it. He'll never have to know."

While Emily and Hanna carefully aligned and photographed each page – twice, just to be sure – Spencer sat in the desk chair, her mind spinning. She couldn't sit still, and even though she knew her constant fidgeting would be annoying the other girls, she couldn't stop it. She'd thought that having the evidence would help, but it seemed to just make things worse. Now they had no choice but to confront Aria, and that was not going to be a pleasant conversation.

Almost as soon as she thought that, her phone went off. The noise was so loud that all three girls jumped.

"Spence!" Hanna scolded. "Turn it off."

"Sorry," Spencer said meekly, looking at the caller ID. Her heart froze. Why was Aria calling her at two in the morning? With a meaningful look at the other two girls, Spencer answered. "Hey, Aria, what are -"

"I don't have long," Aria interrupted, the fear in her voice startling Spencer into silence. "I'm at the cabin, and I -"

"Wait," Spencer said. "Your uncle's cabin? I thought you were with your dad."

"I lied." There was a hint of guilt in her voice, but it was overridden by a sense of desperation. "It's Ezra's cabin, and he's here with me, only he… I don't know how to say it, but…"

Spencer held her breath, scared to hear what Aria was going to say. She was in a cabin in the woods with Ezra, the person who had been tormenting them, who knew everything about them. The person who probably wanted to kill them.

"I think he's A, Spence."

The words took a second to sink in. Spencer opened and closed her mouth, struggling to find something to say. "I know," she said finally.

"You know? How -" Aria broke off with a squeak. There was a brief pause, and then she whispered, "Help me."

Before Spencer could say a word, the line went dead.

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Aria spun around, feeling like she was either about to throw up or pass out. Ezra was standing in front of her, shadows playing over his face. But they were nothing compared to the darkness in his eyes. Aria glanced behind her, realizing that there was no way she could lie her way out of this. The monitors were still glowing with pictures of her and her friends, and she couldn't pretend she hadn't seen them.

Ezra was watching her calmly, clearly waiting for her to make the first move, but Aria was at a complete loss. She had thought she knew Ezra better than she knew herself, but the man standing in front of her was a total stranger. There was no warmth in his expression, no trace of a smile. He was cold, calculating, and for a second Aria wondered which version of him was real: the kind, sweet guy who'd held her while she fell asleep, or the sinister man standing before her now.

The silence stretched on, and Aria still didn't know what to say. Then Ezra took a step forward and she instinctively took a step back, wanting to keep the distance between them. Strange, how quickly things change. Just a few hours ago she had wanted to be as close to him as possible, had curled up next to him in bed, had entwined her fingers with his. Now she could hardly stand to look at him.

"Aria -" he began, his voice unexpectedly soft.

"Don't." As if to compensate, her voice was sharper than a knife. "Whatever you're going to say, just don't."

He stopped moving, his head tilted slightly as he surveyed her, as if he was trying to understand where she was coming from. "You obviously know," he said slowly. "About…"

"About you being the psychopath who's been torturing me and my friends?" Aria spat.

The words had no effect on Ezra. She had been hoping to make him flinch, at least, but he just kept looking at her, his expression never changing. "It was never about you," he said at last, but it didn't sound like he was apologizing. He was just explaining. "I just needed to get to Alison."

"We're not going to let you hurt her," Aria said, and instantly realized her mistake. Ezra's eyes widened, and then a slow smile spread across his face.

"So it's true," he said breathlessly. "She's still alive."

"N-no," Aria stammered, knowing it was useless. She had just given up one of her best friends, had set Ezra on her trail.

"There's no point in lying," Ezra said, sounding like her teacher again, as casual as if he were discussing Hemingway or Austen. "It's not going to save you."

_Save you_. The words turned Aria's blood to ice. She had accepted the truth when she saw the pictures, but she still couldn't quite reconcile the two realities: Ezra, her loving boyfriend and patient English teacher – and this monster standing in front of her, remorseless and terrifying. "Wh-what are you going to do to me?"

He didn't answer, and that was more chilling than anything he could possibly have said. Instead he took another step toward her, causing her to back up so quickly she nearly knocked a camera off the desk. He laughed, but it was a cold, hard sound, something she'd never heard before. "I'm not going to hurt you, Aria," he said, somehow managing to sound both mocking and slightly reassuring.

"Then what's your big plan?" she asked, hoping the anger in her voice would override the fear. "A always has a plan, right?"

Ezra smiled, looking almost like his old self. "I do," he said. "And this one is going to be a scream. Really, Aria, it's to die for."

Before she could ask what he meant – as if he'd tell her anyway – he turned and hurried up the stairs. He paused at the top, turning back to blow her a kiss. "Love you, babe," he said, and then he disappeared.

Aria slumped against the table as she heard the door slam, knowing that he was already gone, that it was too late. She waited a couple of minutes and then forced herself to go up and check, but the door wouldn't open, didn't even creak when she pushed her whole body weight against it. She was about to give up when she heard a noise from outside the room – a voice.

In horror she stepped back, wondering if Ezra had decided to finish the job after all. But a second voice answered the first, and then a third joined in. Dizzying relief swept through her when she recognized them, but it was quickly followed by fear. What if Ezra was still out there? "Guys," she called, and she heard footsteps above her head. "I'm down here. There's a trapdoor under the -"

She broke off as the door opened, and she caught a glimpse of her three friends standing there. But there was a shadow approaching, and before she could warn them about it, Ezra had appeared. He didn't need to say anything, because the gun he was holding was persuasive enough. With one gesture he commanded them to go into the basement, and none of them dared to object. Aria shuffled back two steps, making room for the others on the stairs. They all looked terrified, and Aria couldn't help but think that if it weren't for her they wouldn't be here. There would be time to apologize later, but for now they just needed to survive.

"Why are you doing this?" she managed to choke out, and Ezra peered over the tops of her friends' heads and looked at her. "You're supposed to be one of the good guys."

Her voice was steady, belying the inner turmoil she was feeling. She was too shocked for tears, too scared for anger, but she knew that would all hit later. If there even _was_ a later for her.

"Well," he said, still holding the gun like it was completely natural, "good guys just aren't what they used to be."

Without another word he slammed the door closed, sealing the girls in darkness. Sealing their fate.

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_"Sometimes the villains win."  
>"Sometimes."<em>

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End file.
